


Fade to black

by ferggirl



Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Doctor Who References, F/M, Tumblr Prompt, not as fluffy as it should be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-18 20:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3583401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferggirl/pseuds/ferggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in 2015, hiding out after a failed mission, Cassie introduces Cole to the joys of the Netflix marathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade to black

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MacyAudenStar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacyAudenStar/gifts).



> macyaudenstarr prompted me what should have been a nice silly Doctor Who moment, and this happened instead. I don't know. 
> 
> Prompt: (I imagine you rolling your eyes at me for this one. #sorrynotsorry) Cassie/Cole + “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff.”

The new core works, yes. But differently.

Cole has a bit more precision in his jumps. But they’re longer. Days instead of hours. Cassie keeps the sheets fresh in her little guest room, and he sometimes wakes up in 2043 expecting the silly floral wallpaper and the little blue nightstand.

Once he gets stuck for almost two weeks.

That’s a rough one. They attempt an extraction on Day 3, and it doesn't work. Cassie’s got her right arm in a sling, and Cole has a fucking through-and-through on his left thigh that hurts like hell.

They plot and plan and try to find another way. But two days of that and he’s the one who admits it’s hopeless. She can’t shoot one-handed. He can’t back her up if he can’t walk.

Cassie spends Days 6 and 7 going back through everything, looking for clues they might have missed. Cole sits by the door, gun in hand, and watches for trouble or the flicker of lights that mean a trip home.

Neither comes.

By Day 8, he’s fidgeting and edgy and ready to try again at a fast limp.

Cassie tucks the files away and tugs him over to the couch.

“I can’t see the door from here,” he grouses. She ignores him, and drags a stool into place one-handed so he can rest his bum leg.

“Cass, if they find us-”

“-if they knew where we were, and wanted to hurt us,” she sighs, sinking down into the cushions next to him, “they’d be here by now.”

She’s not wrong, so he relents. The gun is within arm’s reach, and the couch would make a decent barrier in the case of a gunfight.

She’s flicking through some set of icons on the screen, and he narrows his eyes, trying to follow the pattern as she thinks out loud.

“Nikita? No, too upsetting. The Walking Dead? That’s a whole different pandemic.”

She scrolls past LOST ("You’d hate the ending.") and Alias ("There are a _lot_ of spy shows on here.") until something with a blue box and a silly looking man stops her.

_Doctor Who._

The look she shoots him is pure mischief. He wants to kiss the sneaky little smile off her face but settles for a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, we’re watching this one.”

“OK…” He waits for clarification, but she just turns around and clicks play.

Four hours later, he’s leaning forward, reluctantly fascinated as The Doctor makes a run for it. Still, he can’t help muttering anytime the TARDIS is on screen.

“This is a terrible representation of time travel.”

He feels a nosebleed come on and reaches across for the box of tissues. Her gaze is heavy on him as he wipes a bit of blood from his nose and stuffs the kleenex in his pocket.

They don’t talk often about how few jumps he has left. 

The absurdly shaped aliens run around on the screen as The Doctor thinks of something clever to do. Cassie finally looks away, back toward the television.

“It’s more fun than the real thing.” Her voice has a sharp edge that leaves his breath ragged and his heart raw.

On Day 9 they make it to the Christmas episode and the tall terse doctor is traded in for a fluffy-haired guy in a pinstriped suit.

Cole laughs, and it's almost genuine. “Maybe that’s what Jones isn’t telling me.”

He’s not dying, just regenerating. Sure. A guy can dream.

Her hand slips around his and they watch the next two episodes linked together.

When Rose is ripped away, on Day 11, Cassie cries. He offers her the tissue box, but she stomps off to the bathroom.

He can hear her sniffling over the running water.

Cole waits there with The Doctor paused in frozen grief against a blank wall. He thinks about how he held Cassie in his arms as she took her last breath. How she called him James.

She comes back to the couch, and he offers his arm. She lets him tug her closer and tucks her head into his shoulder.

Things get complicated. The Doctor and Rose find each other, but the end comes for them again.

They stand on a beach, and Cassie’s fingers dig into his side where she’s tangled her hand in his shirt.

Rose says she loves him. The Doctor looks sad, and opens his mouth to answer. But the fluffy-haired asshole fucking fades out and she’s left alone.

They both stop breathing for a moment, and then Cole dives for the remote, jamming his finger on the pause button. She’s pale and grim.

It’s too real.

They go to bed, not even finishing the episode. Cole stares up at the ceiling that night and thinks about all the things he should have said in that long silence on the couch.

Day 12 dawns stormy, and the power flickers a few times. Each of those has him tensing for the sharp pull, back to Jones and Ramse and frustrated despair.

Cassie is on edge.

By the time the sun peeks through the clouds, she’s had enough.

“Cole!”

He peeks his head out of the library to find her standing by the couch with her good arm on her hip.

“We’re watching the rest.”

"Why?” He takes a few steps into the room.

“I can’t - We can’t just let it end there.”

And that’s as good a reason as any. They start out on opposite sides of the couch, tense and waiting. The rest of the episode is fucking sad.

But then there's Donna in a wedding dress and Martha Jones is brilliant and they’re on the moon. He can see Cassie relax out of the corner of his eye.

They visit Shakespeare, and Cassie has to pause to explain Harry Potter. She's no longer rigid, and their shoulders brush as she flips through a worn paperback copy of the book.

"See - it's a spell. Expelliarmus. And he uses it instead of the deadlier ones, because whenever he can he finds a better way. Well he tries the deadlier ones, but he's lousy at them. Not enough hate."

Cole stares at her, her bright hair falling over her shoulder and her bright soul filling the room with its steady, certain hope. With her faith in what they are doing and why. In him, despite everything.

"You don't say."

It's four days beyond the longest they've ever spent together. When she helps him up the stairs that night, he hesitates at the guest room door.

"You said my name," he says, one arm still leaning on her shoulders. "James. When you died."

She takes a breath. Then another. "That's your first name?"

He nods, and he can feel the shudder as his fingertips ghost over her upper arm. They matter, he's learned. These little pieces of who he is. They matter to her.

"Thank you." She stretches up on her tiptoes, and he leans down to meet her. Somehow, their signals get crossed - or they read each others' minds - and instead of her lips on his cheek to say goodnight, her mouth finds his. The next thing he knows, she's backed him into the guest room. He wraps his hands around her hips as she presses him into the floral wallpaper.

He doesn't sleep much on night 12. But he's not staring at a ceiling and wishing himself somewhere else.

He wakes up with her wrapped around him, and he can feel it, the pull to the future. It's faint but gathering. He doesn't have long.

They take their time getting up. He curls around her and they talk softly about the end of the world.

Eventually, they wind up back on the couch, her lying between his legs with her head on his chest. Martha and The Fluffy Doctor turn up in London and then vanish unhelpfully.

Statues come to life when the characters look away, which is fine, but one of the cues is lights blinking in and out.

"We could skip it," he murmurs into her hair when she stiffens. "It's just a story." 

She says she's fine. The show stays on.

A dapper fellow asks a girl to get a drink, then vanishes. They meet again that same day, only he's old. Dying.

It's Cole's nightmares come to life. The ones where he saves her, somehow, saves them all but gets stuck in the 1980s. By the time he gets back to 2015 he's grey and bent with age and exhaustion.

The lights flicker and Cassie looks up at him.

"Storm?"

"No." It hurts to admit. Sally Sparrow comes to the end of her adventure while Cassandra Railly sits up and puts her defenses back in place.

The flickering increases and he reaches for her. She steps back out of his grasp and turns off the television.

"Cassie, don't. Don't worry."

When she looks at him her eyes are sad. They're Rose's eyes, from the beach. Sally's eyes in that hospital room. He wishes he didn't understand why.

Somehow, she manages a smile. "See you soon."

"Yeah."

He searches for better words:  _I love you. I'm coming back. Forgive me._

Then the room disappears and he's in the chair with a splitting headache. Alone.

He debriefs with Jones, who's not happy with these longer stays. She says it's bad for his molecules or some shit like that.

Cole thinks it's pretty lousy for his heart, too.

 


End file.
